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Law and Economics

Contracts

2002

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Consenting To Form Contracts, Randy E. Barnett Jan 2002

Consenting To Form Contracts, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay, I will identify one theoretical source of the common antipathy towards form contracts and why it is misguided. I contend that the hostility towards form contracts stems in important part from an implicit adoption of a promise-based conception of contractual obligation. I shall maintain that, when one adopts (a) a consent theory of contract based not on promise but on the manifested intention to be legally bound and (b) a properly objective interpretation of this consent, form contracts can be seen as entirely legitimate-though some form terms may properly be subject to judicial scrutiny that would be …